


open my heart with a knife and slip you in

by basketofnovas (slashmarks)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: BDSM, Blindfolds, Bondage, But this is probably somewhere in the early 1500s, Exact time period purposely vague, F/M, Flogging, Mind Games, Reconquista, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Risk Aware Consensual Kink, Spain is Al Andalus, The Porn Is the Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 23:10:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13691790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashmarks/pseuds/basketofnovas
Summary: “Querido?” Teresa's voice came from above him, her tone so casual it became mocking. “You alright?”“Fine,” he whispered. “I'm fine, don't--” Her lips closed over the shell off his ear, and his voice died before he could sayworry. The stiff boning of her corset pressed into his back through her gown, and he wasn't sure whether it was arousal or horror that made his body and voice shake. “You are sweetness itself, my love.”





	open my heart with a knife and slip you in

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tassledown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassledown/gifts).



> A Valentine's gift for my wife, who asked for Spain/Castile, with flogging, edgeplay and bondage. I hope you like it, love!
> 
> For everyone else: Himaruya apparently at one point drew a female Castile character and identified her as Spain's older sister, though this is probably (?) no longer canon. I'm not going to call that inspiration for _this_ , but I will call it the inch of encouragement that was all I needed.
> 
> Title from translation of a poem by Abu Muhammad Ali ibn Ahmad ibn Said ibn Hazm, an eleventh century Andalusian poet. (With a Knife on [this page](http://rolfgross.dreamhosters.com/PoetryAndalucia/PoetryAndalucia.htm).)

Antonio closed his eyes into the shadow and, weakening, allowed himself to shudder.

“Querido?” Teresa's voice came from above him, her tone so casual it became mocking. “You alright?”

“Fine,” he whispered. “I'm fine, don't--” Her lips closed over the shell off his ear, and his voice died before he could say _worry._ The stiff boning of her corset pressed into his back through her gown, and he wasn't sure whether it was arousal or horror that made his body and voice shake. “You are sweetness itself, my love.”

Her fingers urged his face up, so he opened his eyes, staring obediently at – nothing; the blank stones of the rough wall, unhung and unpainted. _Catholics_. Once there would have been mosaic or tapestry or wood cuts over every inch of his home. Once the room would have been lit with sunlight at this time of day, pouring in through screened windows, instead of the flickering shadows cast by the sconces on the wall.

Once he would have knelt on carpet and cushions, not the rough stone floor. His inner layer of clothing had invariably been silk or cotton and not the rough wool of a hair shirt.

Antonio stared blankly ahead, not seeing. He sagged, and it was only the unyielding stiffness of Teresa kneeling behind him, the meaning more than the force of her hands on his face and shoulder, that kept him up.

“Should be more careful,” she murmured into his ear. Her voice creaked with years of overuse in battle. She spoke in a commander's shout or a murmur and not much in between – a typical hidalgo dressed up in a lady's gowns; and typically uneducated, knowing not much besides her sword and her cattle. What did Castilians know of poetry? Or, for that matter of love?

“Yes, of course,” he said, not understanding.

Her hands skimmed the bare flesh of his back, making him shudder when the points of contact met the ragged tears in his skin. “The penance might be a little excessive,” she said, and slipped the blindfold over his eyes.

The view was better with them covered. No blank stone, and none of the dirt that never came out from under Teresa's nails. “Thank you,” he whispered. Tension eased in his muscles. 

She shifted back and pushed down lightly, commanding him to sit back on his heels.

“You think too much,” she said, and kissed his jaw. And just as he began to relax into it: “They put people in prison for less, you know.”

“You have a strange definition of love talk--” His back arched, nonetheless, as her hands found the hollows of his hips.

“Depends on the lover,” she said, and cackled in his ear – the laugh of a woman a little too fond of rum and tobacco, to match the calluses on her hands. They caught at his skin, making him shudder; and completing the set, her lips on his earlobe were chapped and cracked.

And still they made him gasp; still he gave in to her touch, her rough hands and lips and words, more meaningful than a thousand poems directed toward him had once been. He had been untouchable then; but now she was his conqueror. She mastered him.

“May I tie your hands?” she whispered in his ear.

He spread his fingers on his thighs, pushed back a ghost or memory of manacles snapping down, and murmured, “Yes.”

It was cord she put around his wrists, not steel; cord so light even he in his current state could break it. This struck him as both infuriatingly fair and patronizing; which was only her right to choose.(Though he was regaining strength. He was, eternally and always, Iberia unified.  _She_ was only a jumped up county. She would not hold.)

When she spilled him on his back on the floor, the flagstones caught the open wounds on his back. He gasped again, fingernails biting into his palms. “There was – a carpet.” He was sure that it had been there earlier in the day, though he couldn't remember how long ago it had been moved.

“You'd bleed on it,” Teresa said, coolly pragmatic. He heard a rustle of fabric as she undressed. They had done this often enough that he could picture it blindfolded; the drifts of petticoats piling on the floor. She was finished too quickly to have undressed much – and yes, when she dropped over him on her knees, her skirts settled around him. The tail of her chain girdle pooled on his stomach, forming a cool weight in the sea of fabric.

“Unfasten your bodice,” he murmured, eyes closed into the blindfold. “I want to see your breasts when you take this off.”

She laughed again. Perhaps he only imagined a creak, the soft snaps of her hands on the hooks. “You assume I'm going to.”

“Or you may leave me blind, following ever more after your voice alone,” he said, and hoped he sounded only teasing; that his voice did not break with the awareness that she _could_.

"So you consent?” she said, and he tried to miss the triumphant note in it.

“Yes,” he whispered, face lowering to the side though he had no sight to turn away.

She took him inside her at her leisure.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked my fic, consider reblogging it on [tumblr](https://basketofnovas.tumblr.com/post/170899957205/open-my-heart-with-a-knife-and-slip-you-in)!
> 
> This is set not longer after Spanish unification, probably in the early 1500s, although really the only thing dating it is Teresa's clothing. The idea that Spain was Al Andalus - the last period of unification before 1492 - is bouncing around fandom right now; many interpretations are possible, but I've gone with it here. 
> 
> The Catholic monarchs [conquered the last Muslim kingdom in Iberia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granada_War) the year Spain unified after hundreds of years of conflict. Originally the treaty allowed the Muslim inhabitants to continue practicing their religion. This did not last.
> 
> Castile was a relatively arid area where a lot of economic activity focused on cattle and goat herding. Antonio, as the last scion of a civilization that was [extremely wealthy at its height](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate_of_C%C3%B3rdoba#Culture), is judgmental.


End file.
